


Clear Distinction

by thecivilunrest



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, BAMF Lydia Martin, F/M, Irene!Lydia, Open Ending, Sherlock & Elementary Inspired, Sherlock!Stiles, Watson!Scott
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-13
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-20 02:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/882050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecivilunrest/pseuds/thecivilunrest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The lock is in two pieces and the door is left wide open. In our neighborhood, which is full of old people who don't believe in privacy, this is not a strange occurrence. But at 221B Baker Street, we never leave the door open if we can help it. The last time we did one of our neighbors, Mrs. Hudson, had walked in and cleaned our entire house for us, and in the process messing up Stiles's precise piles of evidence. No one had fun that night; Stiles had bitched for hours and we spent all night putting everything back exactly the way he had them.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>A Sherlock Holmes inspired AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clear Distinction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [usoverlooked](https://archiveofourown.org/users/usoverlooked/gifts).



> For Libby, who wanted _Teen Wolf au wherein Stiles is Holmes, Scott is Watson, and Lydia is Moriarty and Irene._ She knows my weakness for all things Irene Adler and I couldn't help myself from writing a drabble, that became a thing. So. 
> 
> I have actually never watched an episode of Elementary in my life (a tragedy, I know) but I got the general idea of what they did with Irene. I thought it was brilliant so that heavily influences this story, but it's not exact, since I have no idea what exactly happens. 
> 
> This is in first person, as a nod to the original stories and...writing in first person is weird so I'm sorry if that seems weird. This is all very weird, haha.

Our Victorian has been broken into. I might not be as smart as Stiles, but after months as his partner-slash-roommate-slash-sober-companion I have picked a few things up. That includes the signs of petty crimes, and that is exactly what our front porch looks like.

The lock is in two pieces and the door is left wide open. In our neighborhood, which is full of old people who don't believe in privacy, this is not a strange occurrence. But at 221B Baker Street, we never leave the door open if we can help it. The last time we did one of our neighbors, Mrs. Hudson, had walked in and cleaned our entire house for us, and in the process messing up Stiles's precise piles of evidence. No one had fun that night; Stiles had bitched for hours and we spent all night putting everything back exactly the way he had them.

It's also summer, which in San Francisco means that it's colder, so more people are about. According to Stiles this is when burglars thrive, because this is when most people have gone on vacation, leaving their houses empty and their things ripe for the taking.

This thief has not been subtle. But when we walk in, nothing has been stolen. None of the movie paraphernalia that Stiles had collected to help cope in rehab, none of the antiques that had come with the Victorian when Stiles's father had bought it for him. In fact, it looks like nothing has been touched at all.

Still, I get out my phone, even as we move through the house and find that nothing is an inch out of place. “Should I call Deaton?” I ask. Deaton might be more of a department head than anything, but he could still help us without going through the usual channels.

“Of course not,” Stiles says distractedly. I'm used to that now—Stiles sees so much of everything that he can't focus on just one thing at a time. But he's staring intently at the clock on the oven, like he's examining it even though he looks at it every morning when he heats up his toast for two minutes exactly. To me, nothing has been changed, but then I don't always notice everything that Stiles does. I was a doctor, trained to look for abnormalities in the human body, not every day stuff.

Stiles glances towards the stairs, back to the clock which reads 11:11, before turning and running towards the stairs. “Stiles?” I call, but he doesn't look back at me, just keeps going, taking the stairs two at a time. “ _Stiles_.”

He doesn't pause to wait for me. It took a while, but eventually I broke him of this habit. He waits for me now more often than not, instead of wandering away while the gears in his mind turn. So seeing him walk—no, _run_ —away from me is unsettling.

I follow him up the stairs, wondering if he's locked himself into his bedroom as he his prone to do because otherwise I will turn off the wifi, but instead he's paused in the doorway of the second parlor. He never goes into the second parlor if he can help it—most Victorians aren't built with this, keeping the bedrooms to the second floor, but the builder had been a bit of an oddity. He finds it unnecessary, finds the whole Victorian unnecessary, but the Sheriff had insisted.

The second parlor doesn't seem to be unnecessary now that someone's sitting in it. I don't recognize whoever it is, because I'm sure that I've never seen her before in my life. She's short, but wearing heels to make up for it. Her hair is red and pulled up elegantly, exposing a white neck with a sliver chain around it. She's humming something softly, and the moon shines through the sheer fabric of her green dress.

When she finally realizes that she's not alone, the woman turns, and she's one of the most beautiful that I think I've ever seen. Stiles is staring at her like he can't believe what he's seeing—and as someone whose eyes are the most important part of his job, this is saying something.

“Lydia,” he breathes, before his knees buckle. I manage to catch him right before he hits the floor, but it's a close thing. The woman— _Lydia_ —just watches as everything happens, turning herself more fully to face us. She looks amused through everything, even when Stiles says, “You're supposed to be _dead_.”

.

Lydia makes us prepare her tea— _tea_ , at a half past eleven at night—before she'll tell us anything.

“Is this organic?” she asks when I bring her the sugar dish that Stiles insisted that we have. I never thought anything of it, though the dish was rarely used since neither of us drink tea, but now I wonder if the dish had been around all along because of her.

“Yes,” Stiles tells her. “And raw, just the way that you like it.”

I stare at him, but he doesn't seem to notice my gaze on his face. He's too busy looking at Lydia, who's looking right back. It's like they're having whole conversations just staring at each other's faces, and I'm totally and completely out of the loop. This is annoying times a billion, and eventually I clear my throat.

“So,” I say finally, when I can't stand it anymore, “is anyone going to tell me what's going on? Or who you are?” I nod at Lydia and she raises an eyebrow before putting down her tea cup.

“I'm Dr. Lydia Martin,” she informs me, her voice saccharine. “Stiles and I go way back. Didn't he tell you about me?”

“No,” I answer, looking at Stiles, who doesn't have the grace to look ashamed. In fact, he's more present in this moment than in any that I've ever seen him, even when we are on crime scenes. I can tell that he's focused, sharpened, and all of his energy is directly aimed at Dr. Lydia Martin. He hasn't looked away from her since he found her in the second parlor. “He hasn't.”

“I'm offended,” she says, turning her gaze back to him. I'm almost glad that she did—it's easier to look at her when she's not looking back. “Why didn't you tell him about me, Stiles?”

“He didn't need to know,” is what Stiles says, and now I'm the offended one. I thought that Stiles told me everything, that we told each other everything now. We weren't just sober companion and recovering drug addict. We were friends. Or so I thought.

“I thought you were dead, Lyds,” he says, and his voice breaks on her name. “The whole world thought that you were dead.”

“Well I'm not. Surprise.”

“What happened?” I ask. “Why would you pretend to be dead if you're not?”

Lydia doesn't look at me when she answers. She and Stiles are still staring at each other, and it is beginning to grate on my nerves. “Have you really not told him anything?”

“Will someone just tell me something?”

“Dr. Martin,” Stiles begins, and he turns towards me for the first time since we discovered her, “is a genius.” Lydia shrugs at this, like it's no big deal but doesn't deny it. “A mathematical genius. She worked for the CIA, cracking codes. We met when she was helping the FBI with a case. Things happened,” here he glances at Lydia, who looks amused as he glosses over details, “and we were together. But then, a man named Peter Hale, who the FBI were looking for at the time, got involved. Lydia and I got in the middle of it. He wanted her to break a code, see, and I wasn't going anywhere without her. She's one of the five people in the world who could break this code. But then-”

“Then,” Lydia says, smoothly finishing where it seems like Stiles can't, “I was kidnapped. Presumed dead. Assumed more like, but it's all in the past. That's the official story. The real story is that I went into hiding, so Peter couldn't find me and use me anymore.”

“So why now?” I ask. “Why have you decided to come out of hiding now?”

“Because,” she says. “Peter Hale is back and I had to tell Stiles. He's the only one who can stop him. I haven't gone to anyone else to report this. He doesn't need the publicity, or the panic. He just needs to be stopped.”

“So what's Hale doing?” Stiles asks, the name full of venom. He seems to really hate Peter Hale. I've never heard him use that tone of voice before.

“From what I've gathered, and that's quite a lot, people tell you a lot when you're dead, Peter is currently in San Francisco. He's currently on the brink of getting enough information to catalyst terror attacks in London.”

“London?”

“Yes,” Lydia says with a slight smile and a nod. “London. It's lovely over there, I stayed for a bit when I was dead.”

“Well, that's great, but what does that have to do with me and Stiles?”

“Oh, don't worry.” Lydia turns to me. “This won't have anything to do with you, unless you're up for keeping our coffee cups full while we figure this out. You're just the assistant, right?”

I turn to Stiles, who usually objects when anyone else calls me an assistant, but he's not even listening. I recognize the look in his eye, and he's definitely thinking about places that are far from the parlor on the first floor.

“No,” I say finally. I'm not sure what else there is to say. She's right. “I'm not just the assistant.”

“Well,” she says, “I hope your coffee is better than your tea.”

“What sort of attack is he planning?” Stiles asks, cutting me off before I could reply with...something. Anything, really. I'm not entirely sure what I was going to say, but it would have made her shut up about my tea at the very least.

“Oh, you know,” Lydia says, sounding bored. “His usual acts of mass destruction. Bombs, most likely. I'm not entirely sure. But has San Francisco been having an unusual amount of bank break-ins?”

“Yes,” I answer. “That was where we were before we came home and saw that our house was broken into.”

“But nothing's been taken, right? No money?”

“No,” Stiles says slowly. “That's why I was asked to come. The police couldn't figure it out. They thought it was a group of computer glitches at first.”

Lydia sets down the china completely onto the coffee table. “Did you figure it out?” Her eyes narrow, almost like she's examining him. Stiles doesn't seem to notice.

“No,” he admits, which is shocking. Stiles almost never admits that he's wrong, especially not about cases. The fact that he does so readily to her, when he won't even tell me most of the time, unsettles me.

“Pity.”

“So was that Hale?” I ask, not sure where this is going.

“Of course,” Lydia says. “That's his trademark. He can easily hack into bank systems and get as much money as he'd like without anyone noticing, but what's the fun in that? He'd rather confuse people, make them pay attention to him. He's quite theatrical.”

“But no one in San Francisco has heard of him, so why would he be here doing that without signing his name?”

“That,” Lydia says, “is exactly what we need to find out.”

.

They talk all into the night, mostly about things that I can't join in on. They talk about their past back in Boston, when they first faced Hale together. They talk about the string of bank break-ins that weren't really break-ins—just what were assumed to be computer glitches. At least until Hale slipped up, and got online when someone was watching. That was when they called Stiles to come to the scene, and when Lydia was sure that it was Peter and came to inform Stiles.

At around three I start to yawn, bored by listening to them talk about things that I wasn't around for, and Stiles says, “You can go up to bed if you want.”

“No,” I answer, sitting up straighter. “I'm good, thanks.” I refuse to sleep unless they go too, and that doesn't seem to be happening any time soon.

Lydia and Stiles talk until the sky turns pink and the birds begin to sing and the fog comes in. Only when Stiles's alarm—which goes off at six every morning so that he will go for his jog—do they seem to realize that they have talked all night.

“What time is it?” Lydia asks, finally looking up.

“Six in the morning,” Stiles tells her. “I usually go running right now, but it's no big deal, I'll skip it just this once.”

The sober companion in me, the part of me that is currently sleeping because I'm not Stiles's sober companion in much but name anymore, wants to tell him that skipping his routine isn't the best idea. That he should try to follow it to the letter, like he has been other than a few false starts once he came to San Francisco.

But he's been up all night, talking to a woman that I had never heard of before I she broke into our house. None of this has been routine.

“Oh, I should go then. Go get a hotel room, or something.”

“Don't even think about it. You can stay here, with me and Scott!” Stiles says, and he gets up like he hasn't been up all night. He's suddenly rejuvenated with purpose. “I'll go get a room ready.” He doesn't even wait to see Lydia's response, instead flying up the stairs again. I've never seen him this excited about anything that wasn't a crime scene.

Lydia watches him go, faint fondness on her face, before turning to me. Her expression sharpens, and I notice that she never gave Stiles this look. “So. Dr. Scott McCall. I've heard a lot about you.”

“You have?”

Lydia snorts. “No, but you've been seen around crime scenes with Stiles, which makes you noteworthy in that respect.”

“...have you been keeping an eye on Stiles while you were 'dead?'”

“Of course. There aren't that many things that you can do when you're six feet under.”

“He looked for you for _months_ , you know,” I say, thinking of back when Stiles was nothing but a name on a file for me. For the first time since I've met Lydia I remember the fact that he'd been looking for someone when he'd finally started abusing his medication to keep awake before eventually overdosing. “You're the reason-”

“The reason what?” Lydia asks. Her eyes gleam. “The reason Stiles got into drugs?” She waves her hand as though brushing the thought away. “Please, he was on the edge of that himself. He hardly needed a push.”

“You couldn't have told him that you were alive, though? Did you think that he wouldn't have kept your secret?”

“Of course he could have. And, as we both know, he's a very good liar. That was never the problem.”

“Then what was?”

“You really seem to care about him, for just being an assistant.”

“Partner. I'm Stiles's partner.”

“But he calls you an assistant, doesn't he?”

“And you would know that, how?”

“Oh, wouldn't you like to know?”

I want to say something, anything, but before I can Stiles comes down. He's holding the quilt that his mother had bought for him—the one that normally stays on the edge of his bed—in his hands. “Here,” he says, giving it to her like it's nothing. When I'd touched it to help him finish moving him Stiles had almost chopped my hands off. “It gets kind of chilly up there in those rooms. You'll want this.”

“Thanks, Stiles,” she says, accepting it with a smile that transforms her whole face. “I really appreciate it.”

She walks up the stairs with grace, careful not to let the quilt touch the floor. She must know how important it is to him then, which almost makes me angry. Stiles watches her go until the door next to the second parlor closes.

“So,” I say, unsure how to start this without scaring Stiles off. “Lydia Martin. Were you ever going to tell me about her?”

“Eventually. I just thought she was dead and it was so hard thinking about her—because thinking about her too hard makes me want to start using again. But now she's alive. It's really awesome.”

“Yeah.”

“I've just...really missed her, you know?”

In the year that we've been together, I have never seen Stiles so much as express interest in someone, male or female. He told me when we first met that he was bisexual—probably hoping to scare me off as much as anything else—but he'd never acted on it. He might have watched the occasional porno, but that was the beginning and end of anything. I'd never seen him go on a date and he'd turned down everyone that had asked him on one.

I'd never understood it, but now, after meeting Lydia Martin, I could. She was someone who was equal to Stiles, or at least someone that he saw as an equal. And they had history together, history that was locked away so tight that I couldn't even see it.

“She seems great,” I tell him, because I know what he wants to hear. I might not understand Stiles or the way that he thinks most of the time, but he's still my best friend.

He beams at my words.

“She sure is. I can't wait for you to get to know her. She'll probably be staying here until we figure out this thing with Peter Hale. Maybe even after? I don't know. But anyway, she'll be here for a while. I'm sure you'll like each other.”

“I'm sure,” I tell him. “Now you get to bed, or something. Your cravings will get harder to ignore the longer you stay up. You know that.”

Stiles nods, still in practice of me being his sober companion, and walks into his bedroom. I sigh and rub my eyes. This is going to be a long, hard visit by Dr. Lydia Martin. I can already tell.

.

We are all awake by two that afternoon. I make us all a pot of coffee, and Lydia takes two teaspoons of the organic and raw sugar Stiles laid aside just for her even though he thought she was dead. It's the same way that she took her tea yesterday.

She has yet to say anything about my coffee, which I count as a win.

“Have you ever been to San Francisco, Lydia?” Stiles asks halfway into his second cup of coffee.

“No, I haven't.”

“Then we should go on a tour. Scott can be our tour guide—he showed me around when I first moved here.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I did. I'd be happy to take you everywhere too.”

“Then you can take me to the bank that Hale last set the alarm off for?” Lydia asks, crossing her legs. I notice that she's changed her clothes—she must have brought a bag then.

“Of course. I just thought that you'd like to see everything before we went to work.” Stiles looks at me, the one who always tries to get Stiles to relax before he works himself to death or hops back onto the drugs bandwagon, but I shrug. I have no idea what Lydia Martin is planning to do.

“Stiles, you're the world's only consulting detective. You're legendary,” Lydia purrs, and Stiles is eating this right up. Of course he is. “Don't you want to figure this out before the police even realize that there's a problem?”

The excitement on Stiles's face freezes as he thinks about her words. “You're right. Of course you're right. Isn't she right, Scott?”

This, to be honest, is a bit much to take in before my third cup of coffee. “Lydia might be right. You could save lives with this case. After this is over we can go on a big tour. If Lydia stays, of course.”

“Of course,” Lydia says, but she frowns at me before covering it up with the mug of coffee.

“Then as soon as we're all ready to go we can head off to the bank.” They both look at me, still in my Wolfman pajamas, compared to the two of them who are completely ready to face the day. I roll my eyes and finish my cup before shuffling off to my room to change.

When I come back to the kitchen Lydia and Stiles are standing closer to each other than they were when I left. Lydia's hand is on Stiles's arm and she's telling him something in a voice so low that I can't hear what she's saying.

I clear my throat and they separate, as if they were doing something wrong. I look at Lydia and think that maybe they were, but I don't say it. “So, should we head over there then?”

It's a fifteen minute walk to the bank, but no one says a word the entire way there. Not even Stiles, who talks to empty out his brain so he can think more clearly. I just walk next to him and try to pretend like Lydia isn't in front of us, or the reason for our return to the First Republic Bank on Pine Street.

“So, this is the one then,” Lydia says, covering her eyes from the glare of the sun.

“Yes, this is where Deaton called me over.”

“Deaton?” Lydia asks.

“He's one of the few members of the San Francisco PD who will work with Stiles now,” I explain.

“Oh,” Lydia says, a faint smiles around her lips. She looks like she's remembering something, which ticks me off. “Did you scare the rest of them off then?”

“Yes, but it's not like I mean to-”

“I've heard it before,” Lydia says, waving off his explanations as she glances at her watch. “Can we go inside now?”

I don't see what the big hurry is, but I open the door for her the way my mother taught me.

As soon as we all step inside and I close the door there is an explosion.

The entire street shakes, but this is San Francisco, a city built to withstand earthquakes. To the buildings this is nothing, but to the people inside of them it's the opposite. We're all sent flying to the floor.

Stiles shields Lydia with his body, but she pushes him off when everything stops moving. “What the hell was that?” she asks, or at least that's what I think she says. I can hardly hear her because my ears are ringing.

After a beat, though, I can hear the sirens and the screams. “I have to go,” I tell Stiles and Lydia, who still look shaken and pale. “I have to go see what's going on.”

Before I leave I do a quick check on everyone in the bank, and other than a four-year-old who had been visiting the bank with her mother and scraped her knee, everyone is fine. I grab a lollipop from one of the shattered dishes on the ground and hand it to the little girl, before putting one of the band-aids that I always carry in my pocket on her wound. She stops crying, which I count as a job well done.

Then I'm up and running out the door, leaving Stiles and Lydia behind me.

The explosion didn't happen very far away, only a few blocks. It seems to have taken out a whole building. People are swarming outside of the building, where there's a gaping hole where windows and brick used to be.

Almost all of them are hysterical. I can hear the sirens of the emergency vehicles down the road, but they aren't here now and that's the important part. “It's okay,” I shout to be heard. “I'm a doctor.”

I haven't said that in so long that the words almost feel foreign on my tongue, but they do the trick. People let me approach them. Before the paramedics arrive I preform CPR on everyone that I can, as well as trying to make as many of them as comfortable as possible.

I feel so in my element here that I don't notice that Stiles and Lydia have come to help as well until Stiles bumps into me from behind. “Oh, dude, I'm sorry,” I say, turning around to see him. “Stiles, what are you doing?”

“Helping,” he says, wiping the sweat on his face with his sleeve. “Or do you think you're the only one who can be a Big Damn Hero?”

“Where's Lydia?” I ask.

“Around here somewhere. She's helping too, even though she kept saying that she wasn't _that kind_ of doctor the entire way over here.”

“Good. Every little bit counts. But we're going to need to tell the police about this, especially if this is Hale.”

“Oh, this is Peter Hale all right.” Stiles grimaces at the thought. “This is _definitely_ Peter Hale.”

“How do you know?”

“It's obvious,” he says, even though it's really not. When he sees my look he continues. “The kind of explosion, for one thing. With it you can tell the kind of bomb used.” I wasn't aware of this, but with Stiles I rarely am, so I nod for him to continue. “This is the kind that Peter Hale uses specifically. This is also his calling card. He likes explosions, fire.”

“There's no fire here, though,” I point out.

“Yes, but this is only the first one. If there are more, which there might be, then there will definitely be fire.”

“Then we need to get back to Baker Street and call Deaton. Lydia needs to tell him everything that she knows, because this is bigger than the two of you and what might happen. Because this isn't a what might happen anymore, it's already _happening_.”

.

Lydia does not look pleased when we tell her that we're calling Deaton, and that she's going to have to tell him everything, but she admits that we're right. This has gotten out of control for all of us.

“Deaton,” I say when I call him. “We need you to come by Baker Street as soon as possible.”

“I don't know if you noticed, Scott, but there was an explosion downtown today, and we're trying to deal with that, so if this is another one of Stiles's jokes-”

“No, it's not. We know something about what happened today.”

Deaton pauses at that, and I can almost hear him thinking about the pros and cons. “I'll be there as soon as I can,” he says finally, and hangs up.

He takes a few hours, like we knew that he would, and when he finally makes it to Baker Street he looks like a wreck. “So what,” he asks Stiles, “do you know?”

“Stiles doesn't know anything,” Lydia pipes up from where she's sitting at the kitchen table, “but I do.”

“Who is this?” Deaton asks.

“Dr. Lydia Martin. She has personal experience with Peter Hale.”

“Peter Hale?” Deaton asks. “Dr. Martin, are you the same Dr. Martin who worked for the CIA? Because last I heard she was-”

“Dead?” Lydia guesses. “Yes, well, zombies are in right now aren't they? But that's not the point. The point is, I know Peter Hale _very_ well, and I can tell you that it was him that set off the bomb today.”

“How can you tell?” Deaton asks.

“Tell him, Stiles,” Lydia commands, and Stiles tells Deaton what he told me today when we were helping people at the disaster site.

“Lydia and I both have personal experience when it comes to working with Peter Hale, Deaton. This is _definitely_ him.”

“But why? What are his motives?”

Lydia shrugs. “That's part of it, isn't it? We don't know why Peter Hale does what he does. At first, from what the CIA gathered, it was revenge at first. Trying to get back at the people who hurt his family. But after that? Well it might just be for money, or for the rush of power, or simply because he can. Sometimes it's not anything more than that.”

“Well, I'll have to investigate myself, but I think you all very much for the tip.”

As Deaton gets up to go, gathering his coat, Lydia watches him until he's out the door.

.

Lydia goes up to bed early that night, giving me time to talk to Stiles. I haven't seen him alone since she's gotten here, and something about all of this just isn't sitting right with me.

“So...how _does_ Lydia know Peter Hale so well. She seems to know him even better than you, and didn't you both work on that job at the same time?”

Stiles shrugs. “I have freaking clue, okay. But Lydia's been quote unquote dead for three years, and that's a lot of time to dig stuff up about someone. Especially if that someone was responsible for you 'death.'”

“So do you think Hale is going to strike again? Do you think you can figure out when?”

“I can,” Stiles says. “I have to. Lydia and I will work on it in the morning.”

“Is there anything I can do?” I ask. “Anything I can help with?”

“No, it's okay Scott. You can have a day off tomorrow. We'll be fine. I don't really expect you to make us coffee.”

I almost remind him that—no matter what he calls me—I am not his assistant. I'm his partner, which he never fails to remind anyone else who calls me an assistant in his presence. All except for Lydia Martin.

“I just think it's kind of fishy that she knows so much is all,” I try again.

Stiles turns to look at me, and he looks almost scary in the dim light of the kitchen. I've never seen him look like that before—and never will again. “Lydia would _never_ work with someone like Peter Hale. At least like willingly. So what are you saying?”

I can tell from his expression that nothing I say is going to matter. “Me? I'm not saying anything, I swear.”

We talk about other stuff then, but the idea just won't go away, no matter how hard I try to shake it.

.

We find out on the news the next day that nineteen people died and over a hundred were injured. Lydia shakes her head. “What a waste,” she says. “What an absolute waste.”

“We have to stop Hale,” Stiles says. “Before it's too late.”

“Wouldn't you say that it's already too late, though? We couldn't stop him the first time.”

I frown at Lydia. “But we can stop him from doing this again? That would be the same thing.”

“Peter Hale will never be found unless he wants to be,” Lydia says. “You can quote me on that. You Officer Deaton and his department will never get him. The FBI couldn't even do it, what makes you so sure this will work?”

“It has to,” Stiles says. “I can figure this out, I know I can.” With that Stiles goes into his bedroom, and I know from experience that he won't come out for hours. That's how he thinks on especially tricky cases, and I've never seen him so stumped before.

Honestly, I can see not patterns, nothing of note. I might not be as smart as Stiles, but there are things that I've picked up. Peter Hale fits the mold of none of them, and I'm drawing at a blank. Maybe Stiles and Lydia can see these things, but me? I'm lost. I'm beyond lost, really.

“Would you say that the great consulting detective Stiles Stilinski has finally met his match in Peter Hale?” Lydia asks, her eyes still on Stiles's closed door.

“Yes,” I admit. “I would.”

.

Deaton calls us two days later. “We found another bomb. I can't disclose the exact location, but know that it was only sixteen blocks from Baker Street. Reportedly it is the same make and model as the one that was set off three days ago, and scratched in the surface were the initials P.H.”

Stiles whoops from the other side of the kitchen, and I glare at him. “That has to be Peter, though,” Stiles says at my look. “And you stopped him before he could hurt people again.”

“We think that he's trying to get closer to you, Mr. Stilinski,” Deaton says. “He was only blocks from you before and now only sixteen blocks from your home.”

“Do you have any evidence of this?” Lydia asks.

“Yes. There was a note inside the bomb, which we found when we disassembled it. He has, it seems, invited Dr. McCall to tea.”

“Me?” I ask, wondering what in the world I've got to do with all of this. Before Lydia came to Baker Street, I had never heard of Peter Hale in my life.

“Yes, you. A police escort will follow you from a distance, of course. If you can draw him out, Scott, then we should be able to trap him.”

“No,” Stiles says, shaking his head even though Deaton can't see him. “Scott can't go, there's no telling what Peter would do to him, even in public-”

“If Hale wants to see Dr. McCall,” Lydia says, “then by all means let him. He can't tell him much about you after all, Stiles. And we all know that this is what the invitation is going to be about—you.”

I could tell Peter Hale everything about Stiles, and we both know that. We look at each other then, and a year of cases and secrets and drug withdrawals sit between us. “I'll go,” I say finally. “Did the note say where we were supposed to meet-?”

“Scott don't be stupid, you can't go,” he repeats. “What if he hurts you? What if he doesn't even meet with you and instead blows up the whole place?”

“This is the closest that the police have gotten to him the whole time that Lydia's told us that he's in San Francisco. If I don't go then who will? What if he doesn't show up if I don't go? Then this would all be for nothing and he'd blow more stuff up. I can't let that happen, Stiles. I'll go,” I tell Deaton. “Did Hale say where he wanted to meet?”

“No,” Deaton says, and I can almost see the wrinkle between his eyebrows, even through the phone. “No he didn't.”

“Then how is Scott supposed to know where to go?” Lydia asks.

Stiles is staring at me in disbelief, all of his focus on me. I ignore him, and look at the phone in the middle of the table instead, even though his gaze is hot on my face.

Deaton sighs. “We don't know. All we know is that Peter Hale said in this note that he wanted to have tea with Dr. Scott McCall, assistant to Stiles Stilinski. I have to go now. Paperwork, you know.” Then with that he hangs up.

“So,” Lydia says. “The assistant does mean something after all. Imagine that.” She picks up her tea cup and finishes everything before placing it in the sink. “I'm going to go now before Stiles explodes everywhere, like he looks like he's about to.”

As soon as Lydia leaves the room he starts. “Scott, don't be _stupid_ , you can't-”

“Yes, Stiles,” I say, “I can. I can do whatever I like, I'm a fully grown adult.”

“Scott, you're not just my assistant, you know that, right? You're my partner. I only call you an assistant as a joke. So if you're going, I'm going too.”

“If Peter says that I have to go alone then I am going alone,” I tell him. “And that's the end of it. I'm not going to let you come and jeopardize everything today. He's already killed nineteen people, and that's nineteen people too many. If he says that you can come, fine, but he asked for me specifically by name.”

“That's what worries me. How does he know about you? Does he know everything? Nothing? Did he just see you helping me?”

“You know, I'm my own person too. Not just an extension of you.”

Stiles looks offended at the words. “Of course I know that, you idiot.”

“So maybe this has to do with me? Maybe. If he wanted to get to you why would he go through me?”

I feel honestly at a loss, but Stiles rolls his eyes like it should be obvious. “Why do you think? Scott, you're not just my partner. You're my _best friend._ ”

I blink. It's the first time that he's ever said that before. We had an understanding that we were friends, and he's said it once or twice within my hearing, but he'd never called me his best friend.

“Well,” I say when I can trust myself to speak, “as your best friend then I have to tell you that I have to do this alone. It's what best friends do. But you're forgetting that Hale never left a meeting place, so I might not have to go at all.”

“Oh he will,” Stiles tells me. “He likes to playact at being civilized. So he'll tell you when you'll need to meet him.”

I nod and go to my room, suddenly exhausted. I don't really want to go have tea with Peter Hale, but what else am I supposed to do? Let him kill people? That's not an option. He might kill me over china and those mini cake things, but it's better me than even more people. So I'll go whenever he summons me.

.

An invitation comes in the mail the next day, requesting the pleasure of my company at Lovejoy's Tea Room at two o'clock in the afternoon. He addresses me as an assistant, and the font is impeccable, swirly and fancy, on thick white stock card.

Looking at the invitation makes something in the back of my mind feel out of place, but I call Deaton anyway and tell him where to meet us before hanging up.

Stiles is looking at the invitation like it's a nasty bug that he needs to smash, and Lydia is still sleeping upstairs.

“I'm going to say this before I go,” I start. “I know you're going to be pissed, but just listen to me, okay. What if Peter Hale isn't Peter Hale? What if Lydia has been behind everything the whole time? Or, if she's not behind it, what if she's working for him. I know you said that she never would but, Stiles. You haven't seen her in three years. She hid the fact that she was alive from you. That says a lot, don't you think?”

“Scott, don't be stupid. Lydia-”

“Don't. I don't want to hear it. I just want to tell you that it's what I think. You probably would have already figured it out if she didn't mess with you so bad.”

I walk away from him then, and go out to spend some time in the city by myself. I really do love San Francisco. It'd been hard, moving away from Beacon Hills and coming here to go to med school, and then _staying_ here, but I'm glad now that I had.

If I'd just gone back home I would never have met Stiles, and it probably says a lot that I can't think of my life without him now. This might not be the most healthy of partnerships, but it's ours and it works for us.

I don't really think I'm going to die, not now that I think that I've figured it all out, so I take my time walking to the tea room. I get there at two o'clock sharp, and they lead me to a table that had been reserved for me and Peter.

He's not there, of course he's not, so I look at the menu and feel sort of lost. I don't drink hot tea—I think it's gross, mostly. I'd take coffee over tea any day. “If I was you I'd go with the jasmine,” a voice over my shoulder says, and I turn around to look.

Behind me is a man that is older than me, but he looks harmless enough. He's well dressed and polished and this has got to be Peter Hale. For some reason I had been picturing a hardened criminal, someone with scars and muscles. Maybe even a tattoo if I was feeling particularly creative.

What I wasn't expecting is what I'm getting.

“It's delicious, especially here. I order it all the time.” He sticks out his hand. “Peter Hale. It's nice to meet you Dr. McCall.”

I shake his hand and tell him, “I wish I could say the same.” I get out my phone. Deaton and his team are across the street, and one text will have him over here in a flash.

“Oh, now don't do that so soon. Don't you want tea? And if not tea then the cookies here are very good too, you should try one.”

“I really don't-”

“Oh, come on now Dr. McCall. Be civilized and enjoy this moment. You won't get one like it again.”

I set down my phone.

When the waitress comes I order the jasmine and Peter orders some sort of orange blossom something or other. He's right, the cookies are great. The tea is okay at best.

“So, are you going to tell me _why_ you blew all those people up?”

“Does there have to be a reason? See, that's what's wrong with you detective types. You think that everything has to have a back story, a motive. Sometimes there isn't any reason other than someone can do something. Not everything is so cut and dry.”

“You want to know what I think?”

“Sure,” Peter says. “Enlighten me.”

“I don't think you're who you say you are. You didn't bomb anything, did you?”

Peter sets down his teacup. “Very clever, Dr. McCall. Did Stiles Stilinski think that up for you, just like he does everything else?”

“No,” I say. “No he didn't. I did it all on my own.”

“Do you want a cookie for that? If so, grab one. You deserve it.”

I send the text, and the police storm the tea room. “You're so boring,” Peter Hale tells as he's getting handcuffed. “Don't you ever get tired of it? Of being second best, of being behind?”

I walk away. His words don't bother me. I've heard the same thing before, many times, and it's never bothered me. Stiles might be a genius, but I'm the other half of that. The human half. He needs me. We're _partners._

I'm only a few blocks from home when I get a call. “Is this Scott McCall?” the woman on the other end says.

“Yes. Who is this?”

“This is Beth at St. Francis Memorial Hospital. Your colleague Stiles Stilinski has just been admitted, and you were his emergency contact.”

“I'm on my way,” I say, and hang up. I have a bad feeling about this.

.

I fill out the necessary paperwork before they let me in to see Stiles. He had evidently gotten hit with a blunt instrument in the back of the head before falling down the stairs and passing out. They sedated him because he had a broken arm that had needed a rod put in, so he is still out when I am finally able to see him.

Stiles has scrapes on his cheek and his lip, and he looks small and pale compared to the white bed surrounding him.

As I look at him I wonder if this has anything to do with Lydia Martin.

“Dr. McCall?” a voice says from behind me, and it's a nurse in sushi scrubs. She looks shy and I smile at her in an attempt to put her at easy. “I have a message for you.”

“Who's it from?” I ask, but the nurse shakes her head.

“I don't know. But the person sending the message asks if you'd be so kind as to meet her at the Starbucks on Market Street as soon as you are able.”

“Is that the whole thing?”

“Yes.”

She looks like she wants to bolt, so I nod and she leaves me alone with Stiles again. I look at him one more time, at the bandage on his arm and the red marks on his face, and feel sure that this is all Lydia. There's a part of me that wants to stay here, with Stiles, but there's a bigger part that wants to ask Lydia what exactly her game was.

So I walk away from Stiles and get on a bus all the way to Market Street.

.

Lydia is waiting for me, like I knew she would be. She has one of the styrofoam cups in her hand, but no sleeve.

“Your coffee is just as bad as your tea, you know,” she tells me when I sit down, “except that you have the opposite problem. You make your tea too weak and your coffee too strong. You should work on that.”

“I don't care about coffee, or tea,” I say, and ignore Lydia when she says, “Obviously.”

“So what do you care about then, Dr. McCall?”

“I care about Stiles, and I care about you serving time.”

Lydia laughs lightly and rolls her eyes. “Oh, Scott, you really are as dumb as they say. Society always is its own downfall, in the end. Camelot crumbled, Rome caved in on itself, the Ottoman Empire collapsed. There are examples of this everywhere. But now, society thinks of itself as invincible. It's not, of course.

“Society thinks of women as weak, as lesser beings. Oh, men will swear up and down, far and wide that we're all equals now, but we're not. And old white men are the ones saying this the loudest, which makes it all the more ironic.

“When a crime is committed, what is the assumed pronoun? It's he, always he. Never she. Until it is proved otherwise, the perpetrator is always a man. People, society, don't want to see women committing crimes. They don't think that women are capable of murder. So you see, no one will believe you.”

“But I figured it out,” I say. “I figured you out. I know that you're Peter Hale. It was because of the tea and the way you kept calling me an assistant. It was like you weren't even trying.”

“You only figured it out because I made it so easy this time. I wanted Stiles to figure it out. He is, quite possibly, the one person that I've met that I would consider an equal. He's so smart and he makes connections so quickly. But he was blinded by me. People will always be blinded by a pretty face, and it turns out Stiles is no exception.”

Lydia shrugs, and I can't help but get angry. She is acting like this is nothing, like she didn't kill nineteen people plus however many you can find before.

“Then who did I meet at Lovejoy's today?”

“He's someone that I use when I need to have a face or conduct a meeting. He'll be released soon enough, and paid. There's nothing to it.”

“But-” I try, but nothing comes out. Once again I am struck dumb by Lydia Martin.

“Fair warning, next time you'll have to work harder. I won't make it so easy, but now Stiles will be able to see things clearly, which makes everything more fun. I'm the one who put him in the hospital, so he'll know now.”

“You-”

But Lydia's already getting up, leaving her coffee on the table. She reaches out and pats my face. “I hope to see you both in London,” she says, and walks out the door. I stare at her finished coffee, with the lipstick on the lid, before getting up and throwing it away.

.

Stiles is awake when I get back to the hospital. We stare at each other for a moment, and I'm not sure what I want to say. I want to tell him about what Lydia said about going to London, but I also want to tell him I'm sorry that Lydia wasn't who he thought she was.

All he says is, “You were right.”

He won't ever say this to me again.

“I'm sorry,” I say. “I didn't want to be.”

“I know.”

“She says that she'll see us in London,” I tell him, and his face stills before falling into a neutral expression.

“Then we're going to London, I guess,” Stiles says. “But first, let's just stay here a while, okay? Just us.”

“Okay,” I say, and we look out the window together. I might not be as smart as Stiles, but I know that we'll beat Lydia, eventually.


End file.
